Institutions and Literary Genres

The works of the ancient philosophers, those of the Church Fathers, and the Sacred Scriptures constitute the fundamental basis of the development of medieval philosophy, which was then occurring within new teaching institutions: monastic schools, municipal schools, and, starting with the 13th c., the universities. Teaching was grounded in the reading, the literal explanation (glossa), and the commentary on a series of traditional texts; from this didactic model, new literary genres arose, the most relevant of which is the school debate, structured around contrasting arguments (quaestio).